Malika - Day 7 - Drum and Drummer

Woke up at 8 this morning, much to my surprise. Ears still hurt a little bit but not as bad as they did. After breakfast we continued reading in 1 Thessalonians. After that I finally was able to post yesterdays journal on facebook. I write these posts throughout the day on my iPod and then copy and paste using the facebook app at night. For some reason the wifi was still working but not letting me access the Internet. Probably some kind of malfunction with this confounded apple product... I mean apple product user. After a successful attempt at creating a static address I was beckoned by Dany to join him in the shop. The djembe shells were ready to be sanded. After picking out my very own shell I had to decide if I wanted a smooth or rough cut finish. I decided on a rough cut on the top and a smooth on the bottom. The process for going from a rough cut to a smooth finish consists of hours of painstaking scraping with your fingernail to get it as smooth as possible ... actually they take an electric drill and put a sander on the end of it and start sanding away. After sneezing for the umpteenth million time while one of the guys sanded with the drill I was done with rough sanding my shell. One of the drum makers started to fill in some of the small gaps in my drum by taking, what looked like, Elmer's glue and mixing it with the "sand" residue from sanding the shell. He would spread it all over the drum in the places that needed filled and then took a razor blade and scraped the excess off. While waiting for the glue to dry I was intrigued by another process goin on nearby. One of the other products that are made are these little drums ( about 3 inches high ) and used as keychains. After making the shell and adding the top skin they would take long pieces of wire and thread them through a black string; almost like a shoe string. They would then wrap the wire around the top of the drum and make a circle and then manuever the string around the wire so it would appear seamless. They would do the same thing around the bottom of the drum bowl. Afterward they use needle and thread to pull each of the wired string closer together. So here is your first Wolof ( native language ) lesson. Dany says that the national language is french but your better respected if you speak Wolof, which is the biggest tribe in Senegal. How are you - nahn geh def'. I'm doing well - mahn gee fee'. Thank you - yeer' de yuf. Yes - wow. ( This is kind of funny because Jeebs has been teaching me different phrases and whenever I would say them back to him he would say "wow". I always thought he was impressed until I learned he was just saying "yes". ) Your welcome - no ko bo. Praise God - sahnta Yallah. While checking email and facebook, Herma asked me to help her with her frequent flyer miles. I quickly realized the value of skype overseas since it only cost me about 2 cents per minute to talk to the customer service lady. Now we are just waiting for a group of baptists who have been in southern Senegal to join us for dinner and rest before they leave tomorrow morning. Dinner was excellent and was followed by a Senegalese card game called U'-tee-go. Took me a couple hands to get the hang of it but I finally started winning. It's played with 4 people to start and the object is to get rid of your cards. When a player plays all their cards they are in the next game and the last player with cards has to sit out and rotate with the others. This along with some Arabic tea, which is known for being sweet, loaded with caffeine, and served in a shot glass made for a long but eventful night. I learned how to count to five in Wolof which is all the numbers they really use because 6 is just saying the number 5 and 1 together. Then you just have to learn the number for 10, 100, etc. I also learned the names of the symbols on the cards and am finally recognizing some of the guys names too Now that it's 1:15 in the morning it's time to hit the sack. Please pray for my ears still if you would. Good night all, sleep well, and may you have pleasant dreams. IXOYE <>< -Lee